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Thursday, October 6, 2005
ASO plays mostly Mozart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org.
Robert Levin entertains with a fabulous trick. The pianist is a Harvard professor, concert virtuoso, expert in “historically informed” performance practice and a distinguished Mozart scholar.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus recently released a CD of Levin’s masterful (and controversial) edition of Mozart’s Requiem, which the composer left unfinished at his death.
Thursday in Symphony Hall, Levin held the concert’s middle. Before intermission, with English conductor Nicholas McGegan on the podium, Levin and the ASO traversed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20.
Although he uses a modern Steinway and plays with full-bodied, Romanticized tone and phrasing, Levin treats the score as Mozart did: the printed notes are a starting point, not a sacred text.
Thus Levin added colorful embellishments throughout the piano part and improvised his own cadenzas, those brief solo episodes where the pianist can let his imagination and virtuosity run wild.
Levin brings an unquenchable sense of adventure to his interpretations. I’ve heard much more poetry and pathos in this, one of Mozart’s darkest and most emotionally anguished works. But Levin makes spontaneity its own virtue. For all the intellectualized underpinnings, his performance was exciting to hear.
McGegan and the ASO — scaled down to classical-era proportions — joined in the spirit, bursting with a kind of disciplined insouciance that’s difficult to pull off and viscerally thrilling.
Then came the trick.
Levin requested musically literate members of the audience to submit tunes on slips of paper. After intermission, alone on stage, the pianist reached into a top hat and drew three winning themes: two from the audience and one from McGegan.
Levin then launched into a free-for-all solo improvisation, toying with the tunes, racing up and down the keyboard, trying out alternate harmonies and variations. He explained that he does what Mozart, or Duke Ellington’s band, did nightly: riff on a tune within a fixed musical framework.
The result? The 8 minute product sounded mostly Mozartean, for what that’s worth. It is a likable stunt, bluring the boundaries between true inspiration and the reshuffling of compositional clichés.
Levin’s show is also a rarity on the concert hall stage. Instead of the usual pattern — where he plays to his private muse while we sit and listen passively — he pulls the audience directly into his music making.
While the pianist-showman draws the most attention to himself, the best sounds of the evening came from McGegan and the ASO on their own.
The program opened with music new to the orchestra and its listeners: Paul Wranitzky’s Symphony in D, Op. 36. Published in 1799, it’s sprightly and delightful, in a style shared with Mozart and Haydn. The symphony left a semi-sweet aftertaste, like dark chocolate with a high percentage of pure cocoa.
Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony (No. 36) closed the evening. McGegan is a brilliant conductor. He gets a lean, warm, propulsive and often illuminating performance out of the orchestra. He’s been the ASO’s guest before, and I hope he returns again soon, maybe with a Baroque opera — his specialty — or another deluxe project. It would be the highlight of the year.##
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
‘Cotton Patch’ at Theatrical Outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. “Cotton Patch Gospel.” Through Nov. 20.
There’s something fishy and cosmic going on up Gainesville way. The kind of strangeness that lets a rogue prophet feed 5,000 people with a couple of cans of sardines and a few saltines, perform faith-healing miracles on Stone Mountain, and prophesy his own lynching when he gets in trouble with the law.
This is how the late Clarence Jordan fused the patois of North Georgia with the politics of the Civil Rights era to retell the story of Christ as “The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John.” Jordan, who died in 1969, wanted to strip away the regal fabric of most biblical translations to render Jesus as a country mystic who starts life in an apple crate (as opposed to a manger) and gathers his disciples in the conference room of the Unadilla Travelodge.
Just seconds into Tom Key, Russell Treyz and Harry Chapin’s musical adaptation, “Cotton Patch Gospel,” we realize that we aren’t in Bethlehem anymore. And by the end of the quaint and folksy show that Key has been performing in various configurations for the past 20 years, we see ourselves through the prism of history and feel an uncanny sense of deja vu: After all this time, we civilized humans remain quick to attack what we don’t understand.
Don’t get me wrong. Director Susan Reid’s “Cotton Patch” is a boisterously timed comedic hootenanny that succeeds as a crowd-pleasing entertainment for people of all faiths. Essentially a one-man gag in which Key acts out all the parts surrounded by a two-person chorus and a five-man acoustic ensemble, it’s a high-spirited, toe-tapping deglamorization of the most familiar Sunday school lesson of all, from the Nativity to the Crucifixion.
Part of the thrill of this show is the speed and economy of Key’s transitions —- from Matthew (the narrator) to Christ to Herod and so on. With the energy of a man 20 years younger, he hops on crates, trolleys and other shaky-looking props with a gymnast’s precision. His familiarity with the cadences of Southern speech comes through in his barnstorming portrayal of John the Baptist and his goofus interpretation of Lyman Lovejoy, the farmer who witnessed the virgin birth. Key fairly mocks the angel of the Lord by investing him with a faux-Brit accent and some serious wing-flapping affectations.
Vocalist Alecia Robinson knows something about the fine art of acting out a song. [“Mama Is Here” will give you goosebumps.] She’s lovely to look at, too. Eric Moore’s voice is as lustrous and caramel-rich as ever. And the band —- fiddler John Grimm, bassist Ryan Richardson and guitarists Buck Peacock, Rick Taylor and Rob Lawhon (recently seen in “Hank Williams: Lost Highway”) —- not only has that authentic country sound, but also adds heft to the crowd scenes and fills in as Jesus’ followers.
The curious thing about this show, for me at least, is that it portrays Christ not so much as a victim as an instigator. Was he a fraud, a madman or the son of God? That’s tricky, and the fascinating thing is that “Cotton Patch” doesn’t really give you a clear answer, unless you want it to. This isn’t heresy, but testimony to the rigor of the spiritual debate.
Ultimately, what impresses about “Cotton Patch” is the way it ponders the state of the world today, with all its terror, fear, hate, war, catastrophe and shortages. The teachings of “Cotton Patch” author Jordan —- who espoused a philosophy of love over violence, shared possessions and a conservation of natural resources —- ring true like never before. The error of persecuting and indicting out of ignorance is unequivocal, because innocent people can and do get hurt.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Also 2:30 p.m. Oct. 22. $15-$50. Through Nov. 20. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St., Atlanta. 678-528-1500; www.theatricaloutfit.org.
Verdict: Might make you believe, in something.
